I read everything up to some of page 4, then I realized I was reading the same stuff and my eyes were hurting.

This is one of the most heated topics I've ever seen on JGO, but really that's not so surprising to me. This sort of thing always seems to come up from time to time.

I'll start by saying that I've been here since 2005 and I've never had any complaints about it. My first post looks like it was asking for some help on LWJGL (how did I survive any Java development before JGO?). I've noticed what appears to be the typical evolution of code forum members (you start by asking for help on something, then when you like the answers you've been getting and you learn a bit you start helping others) is very strong here, more so than other places. After spending a couple years just coming back here and there to ask more questions and occasionally answer a few, I eventually made myself an actual part of the community and began coming here regularly. My favorite button is "Show unread posts since last visit." And in all that time I can truly say that I've had an absolutely wonderful experience here at JGO.

It's a great community, and although I never got a ton of responses to my games, I also rarely showed off completed ones (because I rarely complete games :-)). A part of me naturally wants everyone to acknowledge me as super amazing, but I also know that I simply haven't earned that over in the showcase section, and almost nobody have. If you look at the really good polished quality games, Virus Effect for example, you'll notice that people really truly want to come back and see more of it. Because it's fun. My games usually have about 2 pages of posts maximum, the first page being "I got this Exception." Just like ChrisM said, you need to earn the right to have people come and look at your game. Everyone on this forum comes here to enjoy themselves and they do it usually in their sparingly short amounts of free time. So if your game is not something that they enjoy playing, it naturally follows that they will not play it. I think it's really childish to whine about that fact - instead think about what might be causing it.

As for Cas being a complete asshole to Julian... I don't think that's the right way to be either. It is not the point of JGO to tell someone that their game sucks. It's the point to say, "this isn't really fun to me at this point - maybe you could improve it here and here." Just telling someone that something sucks accomplishes nothing. I haven't personally been able to play TUER because it needs Java 6, but that's a moot point. Either way the criticism needs to be constructive. I don't agree that telling someone their game sucks so bad that they shouldn't waste any more time on it is constructive. Cas's point was that if we had all said that in the first stages of TUER maybe Julian would have better spent his time somewhere else. But that's ridiculous. The point of almost every game any JGO makes is not to make money, but to learn more about programming. Julian learned raycasting and yadda yadda doing it, so it's not wasted time. From the other angle, when Julian holds TUER high in the air like it's the best thing ever, as well as linking newbies to it (verbally or otherwise) as an example, is also ridiculous. There are lots better games than TUER. There are lots better games than Robo Rampage. That's sort of the point of a developer forum - we're not working on a professional team with these games. Even though I am professionally developing a game in a team with artists and all that, I don't talk about it here because that's not what JGO is for. JGO is about the development of the games, not about the final product. So if I'm developing something behind closed doors with or without an NDA there's no purpose to bringing it here. Notice that PoxNora did nothing but put their game in the showcase when it was done - that's because they knew what they were making and they did it as a team. People come here for the discussion, the critique, and the peer review. So all things concluded any game talked about on JGO probably is not very good in the grand scheme of things.

I know that all my games suck. But they're fun to make so I'm going to keep doing it. And JGO is a fun place to talk with others about making the games, so I'll keep doing that too.

ps. I didn't mean to be an asshole to Julien, but I did want to speak my mind about a general trend of which he is a great example. I admire his enthusiasm but if no-one steps in to really speak their minds about things, no-one's going to get any better. Although... as the disappearance of Kev goes to show - it might just be that I've moved on so far from the purposes of this forum that I shouldn't probably be here either.

I pretty much like it the way it is, however I'd like to see some bigger projects take shape, involving more developers rather than these smaller 1 developer games that we are seeing now, don't get me wrong, a lot of them are really cool. I think that with a reasonably sized team we could see some really fancy games.

I pretty much like it the way it is, however I'd like to see some bigger projects take shape, involving more developers rather than these smaller 1 developer games that we are seeing now, don't get me wrong, a lot of them are really cool. I think that with a reasonably sized team we could see some really fancy games.

Yeah I've looked at all of that but its the whole "too many chefs" problem I think.

// Json

yes and i think thats why the idea for the community game that started in jan, and turned out to be 3 different games, got killed. To many people wanted to many different things. Would've been cool to focus on one idea, and go with it.

Group project are definitively the futur (but not the failed one). From what I experiment so far, making a complete game is just too much for a single developper. It's true that we lack the artist to be able to make complete game but there is still one area where we can make a lot of progress. Which is :

Working in group and managing a project, even if it's just the usual techie demo we are used to.

I think a group project would be nice, but I think using the community based approach from before will always spell disaster. I figure it'd be better if someone who has a concept (even very generic/basic) that wants to try it should step up to be the organizer. Then they'd contact promising/interested community members in private and design the game.

I guess my point is that forums are good for help and feedback, but it's not the right medium for organization: that needs to be more personal.

Then later on we were in need of other stuff so we acquired more people... the point is if the game is interesting its not that hard to find free artists that are interested or anyone else for that matter. As long as you give them a few degrees of freedom to add what they'd like to see.

So as far as community projects, the number one thing you need is dedication. If there is not one person driving the game, then progress stagnates and interest drops. Many times production from my team members drops if I have not put out any updates on VE, so they start to forget about the game. But as soon as I show what I have been doing everyone gets inspired and production increases tremendously.

So community projects should go in the route of a public idea/goal, one person starts it, gets the base code done. Then anyone interested in helping code it or anything else would be acquired afterward. The entire time progress has to be obvious for the other members or else people lose interest quickly, that's why its better to have at least one super dedicated person to consistently create content and keep the project alive.

We recently acquired another free graphics artist (pro works in the industry)... but that's another story.

That's a good idea. There are plenty of talented programmers lurking round the forums; Having some easily accessible artists that we could coo into creating quality content would be fantastic. Shame there isn't much(if any) money in Java Gaming but I doubt you here because of that(call it love).

It is unfortunate that nothing seems to ever comes from the community projects but (like said above) we seem to be suffering form "to many chiefs not enough Indians" syndrome. It's apparently very difficult for us to conform to a single vision of how a game should be. We need of some cohesion and structure (without taking away what has made this forum so successful) so hopefully Java Gaming's goals can be realized.

In saying all that, we seem to failing at more fundamental things but hopefully this thread has raised some awareness in what to do/not do.

I have just approached two members of the community that have reached out and offered their assistance with JGO. I won't say who, just yet, as I want to wait until they have confirmed their participation and we have had a chance to talk.

That sounds like some sort of cooking ingredient or kitchen implement.

"Hey honey, can you pass me the runner of jgo? I need to get this jelly mixed with this gooey orange."

But anyway I don't think it would be a new person running JGO, just Chris wants to distribute his responsibilities amongst 3 people instead of just him, mainly so that JGO can become more of a quality community... at least that's how I understand it from his previous posts in this topic.

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